The weather is playing with us.
This morning heavy snow flurries cancelled my trip to Bute.
But by this afternoon, everywhere was calm and still.
I took this from our bedroom window earlier-
Despite the poor light I was too lazy to set up a tripod. Here is another one, taken from William’s bedroom…
The power is back on!
I remember as a child in the 1970’s we had a series of power cuts during times of industrial action. Those hours spent by candlelight, eating sausages and beans cooked on a camping stove are lovely memories- and I still remember the disappointment I felt when the lights came back on. The time of dancing shadows was over, and the florescent uniformity was back again.
I felt a little flicker of this disappointment today. But these days, the lack of power is no benign thing- particularly in Argyll.
The storms today cut off Cowal entirely- the Rest and Be Thankful pass was blocked, and the ferries all stopped running. Trees are down everywhere and caravans and high sided vehicles tipped over.
In fact, I called in to the Police Station earlier and was told that an articulated lorry had been blown on its side, only later to be blown back onto it’s wheels! I confess to feeling skeptical, but the story was told to me in all seriousness.
More seriously there have been a spate of accidents- a policeman is said to be amongst those injured.
And when the power is out, the frailer members of our society are very vulnerable.
We have not escaped damage to property either- William’s shed took a battering, a fence is wobbling and water is coming in to our house through the skylight.
But for a while, we sat in the lounge before a raging fire and played games by the light of candles. Everyone was happy, somehow buoyed by the drama and comraderie of it all.
And then the lights came on again.
And we went our separate ways- to our individual screens and electronic cocoons.
A small band of survivors no longer.
Storming
Ripping and rending
Bending then breaking
Scuttling and guttering
Litterbugs whirling
Hold fast to the railing-
Here comes the storm
Slates start their scissoring
Lifting and sliding
Chimney pots clinging
Open mouth howling
Insurance claims pending-
Here comes the storm
Foaming and crashing
Spray plume tongue lashing
White horses raging
Anchors are scraping
The shore all white teething-
Here comes the storm
Sirens nee-nawing
Some cars aquaplaning
Power lines sparking
Snaking and falling
Gadgets are dying-
Here comes the storm
REPENT POSTER- Buy nothing Christmas
I am a sinner.
I try hard to rid myself of my sinful ways. I get up in the morning with every intention of living the day like it was my last stop before the pearly gates- but then find that sometime before breakfast I have squeezed in one more visit to the fleshpots.
So it is, my friends, with consumerism.
I try to resist, but the flesh is weak, the stuff so seductive- I am captivated as if by some golden snake in a gadet filled garden.
We live to our means- and then a little beyond them in our western culture. To NOT do this is strange. The challenge to all of us, for the sake of the planet, is to find ways to break the bonds of addiction, and to move towards simpler lifestyles.
Perhaps you are not ready to do this- but if you are not, then it is likely that neither will your neighbours, and more worryingly, neither will your children.
Which brings us back to Christmas- the jewel in the consumer crown. The cash cow. The season when the ship comes in (from China of course.)
We repentants need to pawn the crown and find something more meaningful to do with the money.
We need to kill the cash cow and feed it to the hungry.
We need pirates to plunder the ships on the high seas, and empty out the sweat shops of the global south.
OK, I am getting a bit carried away by all this imagery. But how do you change? Can anything we do really make a difference?
I have tried the left wing middle class option for years- doing much the same as everyone else, with a little guilt and ‘fair trade’ product placement. Always being unsatisfied in theory, whilst greedy for more in practice. I want so much better for my kids, as I fear that it may already be too late- that the addiction has taken hold with them.
And more and more it seems that Christmas is the key. If we can not resist consumerism over the season named after Jesus Christ- then perhaps we never will.
What I have discovered however is that only one thing really will make a difference- and it is a rather counter intuitive one-
STOP buying presents!
What? Is this not the meaning of Christmas I hear you cry? The joy of giving and the sparkle in the eye of Tiny Tim? How mean spirited and gloomy that is!
Do you really believe this though? Is it really not possible to be full of joy and love and laughter unless you have spent hundreds (and thousands) on stuff that for the most part will be in a landfil site within the year?
You see- we have tried asking people not to give us gifts- that is the easy bit. People gave anyway, as the powers of obligation are strong- and also, we are so conditioned to beleive that there is simply no alternative.
And the whole system is perpetuated.
The difficult thing is to contact people who you love, and discuss the fact that you will not be giving them shiny stuff this year.
This is not the same thing as giving nothing of course- but there are so many cash free alternatives.
Flee from the sin, and you will be on the road to freedom.
But… there is that golden snake again.
Chickens do not like snow much. They walk on tip toes and slip and slide around in good comedic style.
You just have to take photographs.
Great programme the other day on Radio 4 about Richard Thompson.
If you like skilfully played guitar, it simply does not get much better than when played by Richard Thompson. Not so mention his song writing.
In the programme he talks about his guitar style- typically using ‘flat picking’- a combination of strumming and finger style. For the non guitar players, finger style guitar is usually the soft mellow arpeggio stuff, whereas strumming is much more rhythmic. He will hold a plectrum between two fingers, and use his other fingers to play dazzling riffs at the same time. What Thompson achieves, on electric or acoustic guitar is to imbue everything he does with power and subtlety. It often sounds simple and understated- the signs of real virtuosity.
Michaela pointed this out to me the other day- Poetry tree.
Apparently someone has been carving meticulous incredibly complicated and laborious sculptures out of books, then leaving them anonymously in various locations in Edinburgh- the Scottish Poetry Library, the National Library of Scotland, the Filmhouse, the Scottish Storytelling Centre.
These creations are rather wonderful- the person (or people) who made them are creative, painstaking and have clearly moved people- check out this article in the Guardian.
I feel strangely unmoved however- and I am not sure why. These represent something that I would normally get excited over- creativity given generously- quirky and thought provoking.
I think it is because in these objects of art, I see something of my own creativity. They appear to be rather obsessive private works, packed full of detail and ambiguity, suddenly ‘out there’.
Poetry is a very selfish activity.
My own version of this selfishness starts with little fragments of ME- what is meaningful to me, what I have seen and felt and understood. The forms of words that emerge from this selfishness then allow me to ‘work it out’ somehow.
The thought process are a little like the operation of the scalpel on the paper sculptures above- a slice here, a word cut here. And it is me doing the slicing, of my words.
What happens next is interesting- because for (my) words to be fully alive, they need to be heard by others. My way of doing this is to wear them on my sleeve which can be a rather vulnerable thing to do, but the rewards mostly outstrip the risk.
Is this a problem, this narcissistic core at the heart of artistic process? I suppose, to a certain extent, it is simply is what it is. Art has an origin, and the art is only possible because of who the originator is.
But I still find myself uncomfortable- perhaps this is because I still believe that the highest calling we have as human spirits is not to be noticed and lauded for our creativity. Rather the best of what we are is when we live for others.
I realise there is a terrible danger in art for purpose- it easily becomes propaganda. But the things that move me most have something to say. I read this recently and muttered a little ‘Amen.’
The poem that refuses to risk sentimentality, that refuses to risk making a statement, is probably a poem that is going to feel lukewarm. So I am in favour of work that if it fails, fails on the side of boldness, passion, intensity.
Mark Doty
Back to these paper sculptures. I do not mean to be ungracious- and Michaela for one finds them delightful. How about you?
The coin fell and the
Machine burped into action, its belly
Rumbling, promising the delivery of
Instant overly salted, high
Cholesteroled delicious snacking
Something in its shiny face
Uncurled, and the bag of crisps leaned
Towards me almost dropping.
Almost
but not
quite
And I am left hungry
But perhaps the healthier for it
Perhaps the wiser
Without it
Today Emily and I had to go into Glasgow to pick up her new glasses. She has been given these to help her with reading- remarkably, the particular colour of blue they are tinted with seem to increase her reading speed by around 50%. Previously she had somehow coped with words swimming around in her vision- particularly at the ends of lines, making it almost impossible to find her way through dense blocks of text without huge effort. How she managed so well up till now is a mystery to all of us.
Anyway, this also meant that my pointedly deferred shopping expedition sort of came back to haunt me. Emily needed a new dress for her birthday meal with friends at the weekend so we went out into the crowds of Buchannan street- in the middle of all the Christmas madness.
I survived.
But I am not less appalled by it all.
If anything could sum it all up for me it is this-
I read this poster in the toilets in St Enochs Square shopping centre. (OK- Emily noticed the same thing and this poster was in the ladies loo. She took this photograph. Obviously.)
Whilst I was reading the poster, two young lads came in. They hovered a little- it was crowded, and they were encumbered by sleeping bags and rucksacks. It was obvious by that they were rough sleepers, in for a clean up and a bit of warmth.
The contrast with this poster seemed great at first- then less so. The edges of this credit driven culture we have created can be seen in both the poster and these rough sleeping young men. It suddenly seemed to me all about disconnection.
Disconnection from one another- from community and place. Disconnection from the means of production, and from the land that sustains us. Disconnection from the spirit of man, and from the Spirit of the Living God.
What madness is it that makes us still think that we can keep making money from plastic cards and using it to buy ever more stuff? What crazyness drives us to feed our addiction for more credit even by desperate measures like this- trying to screw more money out of banks who have already brought us all to the edge of the abyss by lending too much of the stuff?
As if the best we can now hope for was this last loophole through which we might get a little more free money.
Last week in Dunoon, one of the ‘hole in the wall’ cash machines went wrong, and started paying out double the money that people requested. Pretty soon, the word got out and a queue formed down the street. The bank, in panic, asked the police to come, just to turn people away.
Not a good advert for the people of our town, even if we might regard the banks as fair game given their impact on the economy. But perhaps none of us are that different- who could ever turn down some free money?
this fragile tent 